“No need to go far seeking the experience, we must look at what is happening around you.” It is this conviction that led the Army General Flavien Nziengui Nzoundou, 3rd Deputy Prime Minister in the Government of Gabon, in charge of Training and insertion of the youths, to Songhai Centre in Porto Novo with his colleague Etienne Dieudonne Ngoubou, Minister of oil and hydrocarbons on Thursday, February 18, 2016. The mission to Porto Novo “is a request of the President of the Republic of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, fully committed and engaged in … finding solutions to achieve food self-sufficiency” the 3rd Deputy Prime Minister said.
By looking then at what is happening around us, the President of Gabon discovered Songhai – which he also visited in April 2010 – and “therefore Songhai in Benin was taken as an example to which we must quickly come closer to see how to boost agriculture and achieve food self-sufficiency in our country” Flavien Nziengui Nzoundou said. For him, what they discovered in going round the farm is “wonderful” and “one must come to the site to see what is going on to be truly convinced” him as he is now, with his colleague in charge of oil and hydrocarbons, whose ministry funds the agricultural sector.
Among the wonders discovered by the delegation at Songhai Centre, fish farming is a major one. For Flavien Nziengui Nzoundou, “fish farming should be developed” in Gabon – a coastal country engaged in marine fishing – for a better supply to the Gabonese people, known to be a “major fish consumer“, especially when we know that “the fish caught offshore in Gabon is not taken far in the country” seems to regret the Honorable Minister Nzoundou announcing the replication of Songhai development model in Gabon.
It is in this perspective that a partnership will soon be established between Songhai and the Gabonese ministries involved in this initiative. General Nzoundou who also is in charge of Training and insertion of the youths in Gabon indicated that, one of the concrete actions that will demonstrate this partnership is to send to Songhai, in the near future, some youths from Gabon to “receive the necessary training to enable them, when back in Gabon, begin to initiate a great work” in the image of what is done in Songhai Benin. Because, he says, “we want to have a center on the Songhai model’’.
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